Pyramid is one of the best-known time clock manufacturers, right up there with Acroprint. The complete name of the company is Pyramid Technologies (PTI). They make biometric, digital keypad and punch-style time clocks. The Pyramid 3500 is one of their cheaper punch-style time clocks.

The Pyramid 3500 can be used to stamp the time on a time card or on a document. It stamps the year, the date, the time and can be used to stamp 14 different messages. This makes it ideal for employee time and for document control purposes.

Setup on the Pyramid 3500 is very simple and isn’t much more complicated than setting up an alarm clock. The easy-to-use interface only takes about two minutes to set up. The LCD display is large, easy to read and easy to navigate. It can be set up and used in English, Spanish, French or German.

An auto-punch feature stamps cards and documents as they are fed into the machine. The printing is done via a built-in dot matrix print head. This print head is designed to be used daily and should easily hold up for years without issues. The dot matrix print head makes stamped data easy to read. It can be used with standard time cards or with Pyramid brand cards.

The Pyramid 3500 is designed to handle short months, leap years and daylight savings time. It even includes a battery backup that keeps settings stored for up to 30 days. This is pretty nice. Believe it or not, many punch-style time clocks do not have this feature.

Overall I consider the Pyramid 3500 to be a solid little time clock. It is perfect for use in small businesses and small offices.

Finding a good, reliable employee time clock can be tough. There is a lot of cheap stuff out there and you need something that is going to last for years. One popular brand that a lot of people are using is Pyramid Technologies (PTI). One of their most popular models is the PTI Time Trax Bio (found here). Here is my review.

To begin with, the Tim Trax Bio is a biometric time clock that uses your finger to punch in and out of work. The employee has to be first set up with the time clock. This involves sliding a finger over the finger scanner. Once a name is associated with the finger scan, that employee can begin using the time clock.

So why use a biometric time clock? The biggest reason is convenience. They don’t require any special PVC ID cards or punch cards. All you need is your finger, and most people remember to bring that to work. There is no need to print replacement cards and buddy punching is pretty much eliminated.

We actually use this particular model for tracking employee time here at ABC Office. We have been using it for over two years now and we all enjoy it. It is very convenient, I don’t have to bother with a punch card and there is no need to carry around a separate ID card. The entire process is simple.

The time clock itself hooks up to a computer. Our accounting department is able to export the logged data from the time clock and use it for payroll purposes. It is very easy to do and “time worked” reports are very easy to generate. The Time Trax Bio can export data for use with ADP, Paychex, QuickBooks, Excel, and more.

The time clock can either be used on a flat surface (which is what we do) or be mounted to a wall. It is also available in a Serial/USB or an Ethernet version. The entire time clock is very small and compact.